Maintenance-friendly
Due to the environmental conditions as described in
Chapter 2, maintenance can be a difficult task. Ease of
maintenance needs to be taken into account when generating
and assessing solutions.
Blockage
Blockage can cause the transshipment to come to a halt
and this would delay the transport. More importantly,
blockage can damage the equipment. Therefore, it must
be prevented. Blockage can be caused, for example, by
plastic parts that are too large for the equipment or by
mechanical failure.
Spillage
Spillage of the plastic has to be minimized to optimize
the efficiency of the project.
Power
From a practical and sustainable viewpoint, the platforms
need to be as energy efficient as possible.
Costs
The solution has to be cost efficient so as to make the
Ocean Cleanup economically acceptable.
Bulk density
Measurements taken from the samples collected from
Hawaii have produced a mean bulk density of 300 kg/m³.
This was determined by Norbert Fraunholcz, of Recycling
Avenue, who examined the samples. More information on
this subject can be found in Chapter 9.